


Anniversaries

by anr



Category: Farscape
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-30
Updated: 2004-07-30
Packaged: 2017-11-04 11:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We may have been born worlds apart, but this world, here and now, is all that matters."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anniversaries

**Author's Note:**

> _The Locket_ (2x16).

_x. tin_

The first decade is the longest. The hardest. Transition, Aeryn calls it. Adaptation. Shedding his old life and accepting the new.

Learning to garden, to fit in, to live... it is Acquara with better company and no shakloom and he shaves daily, chanting with each stroke of the razor, _not an astronaut, not a scientist, not a pilot. Not anymore._

To his reflection in the polished surface, _not ever again._

But where does that leave him? _What_ does that leave him?

And Aeryn says, "we may have been born worlds apart," with her voice soft and unintentionally cruel, "but this world, here and now, is all that matters. You adjusted to Moya once; you can do it again here."

He wants to believe it's that simple.

  


* * *

  


_xx. china_

There are other women over the years. Not many, not often, just someone to go to when Scorpy gets too loud, and Aeryn looks too old, the planet too green. An outsider at first; then a woman from the far side of the colony. Subtle, quiet interludes with no commitment, no promises, and he always returns to Aeryn and the house they share afterwards. Feels a little dirty, a little ashamed, but he's only human and Aeryn is always kind enough to pick a fight with him on his return, to give him a tangible reason to feel guilty.

(He's broken her good plate. He didn't take out the garbage. Taught one of her great-grandkid's a bad word.)

Her understanding makes it worse, and he never, ever tells her so. It'd hurt even more if it didn't.

  


* * *

  


_xxx. pearl_

Thirty cycles on with old age bearing down and a busted knee to show for it. He has grown a beard because Ennixx challenged him to and kept it to annoy Aeryn.

"You look like dren, John," she tells him daily, "like shit," and he laughs because he'll never get tired of hearing her use his words.

"Don't look so crash hot yourself, babe." Still laughing. "Just an old woman, now."

She sniffs. "Not so old that I can't kick your eema."

And that she's probably right only makes the banter sweeter.

Shaves it off, though, one day while she's out, and loves that he can still make her smile like that.

"Like a baby's bottom," he says, rubbing his chin as she stares at him from the doorway, "smooth like a--"

Her hands, replacing his, and the words just fade away.

  


* * *

  


_xl. ruby_

"... who could hang a name on you, when you change with every new day... c'mon now, Aeryn. Sing it with me."

Her look, indulgent and you're-farbot-John-Crichton, as she shakes her head. "No."

"Babe..." They are taking their daily walk and he would nudge her playfully if he didn't think, some days, that it might be the last movement his hip'd ever make.

"It is a ridiculous song and you forget the words more often than not, anyway."

"Farko, woman. I ain't forgettin' nothin'." He taps the side of his head with the hand not around her waist. "Like a steel trap, this is."

(Which, combined with Scorpy and his incessant nagging, means he's never forgotten the life he used to lead: astronaut. scientist. pilot.)

"A rusted trap, maybe. Who was meant to turn off the lights last night?"

Him, of course (not that he'll ever give her the satisfaction of admitting it). So he grins, hugging her, and sings, "still I'm gonna miss you..." just because he can.

  


* * *

  


_l. gold_

On the wrong side of eighty-five and it's been a long decade, the jubilee longer still. Fifty years since Moya but Aeryn's baked him a cake and Ennixx's littlest lisped, "happy birfday, grandpa," when she hugged him this morning. (He didn't have the heart to correct her.)

So he says, "long day," that night, as they sit on their porch and the setting sun casts shadows. "Long life." With Aeryn's hand warm in his as he thinks of the first time he saw her, the first time he touched her. Thinks of Moya, only five years away. "Not so long now, Sundance."

"Hmm." Her head, resting on his shoulder; a smile on her lips. "But the wait's not so bad."

The sunset, his woman, this moment...

Tonight, he cannot disagree.

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/155559.html>


End file.
